Talking Rings and Arm-Wresting in Space

 

cover art by Dick Giordano

Green Lantern #128 (May 1980) is a breather issue, taking a pause from the Sinestro/Weaponers story arc before the grand finale next issue. Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Joe Staton give us a flashback to explain why GL's ring occasionally talks to him.

Hal returns from OA and the ring tries to warn him that the boy Fabian is really the Qwardian General Fabrikant. But its message is unclear and Hal, exhausted from having just fought a war, doesn't get it. When Fabian and Carol ask him to explain how the ring can talk, he says it doesn't really, then tells them about an old adventure to clarify this.

Several years earlier, the ring temporarily failed Hal when he was pursuing criminals. He manages to catch the bad guys anyways and asks the ring why its out of order. The ring replies that its been ordered not to tell by someone else.

Hal gets around this by asking the ring to simply point towards whomever is stealing its power. He gets led to Hector Hammond, the villain who once gained psionic powers via a strange meteorite.

Hammond, using the power he's stolen, manages to trap Hal, then flies off into space to find more samples of that meteor. Hal gets loose, recharges his ring, pursues Hammond, then gets the villain into a sort of power-ring arm-wrestling contest until the 24-hour limit on the stolen power runs out. Hammond is captured and the threat is ended.

Ir's a nifty story, with the Space Arm-Wrestling match making a particularly fun visual. But when the story is over, Hal explains that his ring occasionally echoes his own subconscious thoughts. It can't talk on its own. 

If I want to nick-pick, I could start wondering why the story Hal told was necessary to explaining how the ring sometimes seems to be able to talk. The story itself doesn't really clarify this one way or another before Hal just says "My subconscious thoughts." But, as I said, its a fun story. So what the heck.

The issue ends with General Fabrikant getting ready to reveal himself and take vengeance on GL for messing up the whole conquest-of-Oa deal. 

We'll look at that final issue of the story arc in two weeks. Next week, we'll visit with Iron Man.